Oca wins again in wild race around town square in Italy

Arguably the world’s wildest horse race was won Thursday by the jockey who inarguably has become the 392-year-old event’s most dominant jockey.

Giovanni Atzeni, who goes by the professional name Tittia, rode quickly to the lead shortly after the drop of the starter’s ropes and looked back only to see the competition trailing him. He guided 6-year-old gelding Diodoro to about an eight-length victory for the Oca neighborhood in the Palio di Siena, the medieval race run twice every summer in an ancient town square in Italy.

It was the 11th win in the bareback race for Atzeni, 40, whose younger cousin Andrea Atzeni is a 26-time Group 1-winning jockey in England and now a regular rider in Hong Kong. Tittia also trains Diodoro, who was making his first run in the Palio.

The regal district Oca, the Italian word for goose, won the race for a record-extending 68th time.

With a dearth of formal rules and a surplus of gamesmanship, the race had one false start and the requisite multiple requeues between the starters’ two ropes on the clay course laid down in Siena’s trapezoid-shaped Piazza del Campo. After about a half-hour that included a call to sponge down the horses on the 87-degree evening, the field of 10 finally got on its way going three laps around tight turns covering a total of five furlongs.

Breaking from second closest to the inside, 10-year-old gelding Zenis representing the Selva or forest neighborhood had the best start. Jockey Andrea Sanna was joined quickly to his outside by the Oca entry, which started from position 5.

By the second of the course’s four turns, Oca had the clear lead over Selva. They remained first and second through two laps with the Valdimontone’s 7-year-old horse Comancio racing in third after triggering the race as the outermost entrant known as the rincorsa.

Five horses behind the leaders lost their jockeys during the race, and there was no report on their condition of those riders. Under Palio rules, any of those horses still could have won without them. No one, however, was threatening Oca.

Bruco, which means the caterpillar, passed Valdimontone in the final strides for second. The neighborhood’s 11-year-old gelding Viso d’Angelo was ridden by five-time-winning jockey Jonathan Bartoletti, but there was no moral victory in being the runner-up. In the culture of the Palio, there is more shame in taking second than in finishing last.

Horses representing the 17 districts of Siena race every July 2 and Aug. 16, important dates on the Catholic calendar. This first race of 2025 was postponed 24 hours because of rain Wednesday. Each Palio has 10 horses. Barring suspensions, the seven neighborhoods that did not go in the most recent race are guaranteed to start with a draw determining the three remaining entries.

The jockeys’ only tack consists of bridles and reins. They wear the colors of the districts they represent, but their clothes look more like something out of a jousting tournament than a modern horse race.

More than 50 horses reportedly have died in the more than 100 runnings of the Palio since 1970, making the race a frequent target of animal-rights activists.

As usual, the Palio course inside the Piazza del Campo was ringed and filled with tens of thousands of spectators. Those on the perimeter of the course paid upwards of $10,000 for their vantage points in hotels, restaurants, shops and the Siena city hall. Others get in free but have to stand all day in the unshaded infield, which was not filled to capacity as it normally is.

Even before the race was finished, fans streamed onto the course, but that is not unusual. They mobbed Diodoro and Atzeni in a scene that will be repeated with the next winner in 44 days, weather permitting.